Russian Federation and the Syrian government said they will open humanitarian corridors in Syria’s embattled city of Aleppo on Thursday and offer a way out for opposition fighters wanting to lay down their arms, even as Syrian forces took another district from rebels in the city.
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The announcement came as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad offered an amnesty to rebel fighters who handed over their weapons and surrendered over the next three months.
“Everyone carrying arms…and sought by justice…is excluded from full punishment if they hand themselves in and lay down their weapons”, SANA announced.
The U.N. humanitarian chief says the Russian proposal for humanitarian corridors in Aleppo must be guaranteed by all parties and “no one can be forced to flee, by any specific route or to any particular location”.
U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura (R) called on Russian Federation and the United States on Thursday to work together in reducing the fighting in Syria.
Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the outbreak of the conflict five years ago, has been divided between government forces and rebels since the summer of 2012.
Residents in rebel-held neighborhoods in the city’s eastern sections have told CNN that they are going hungry, and have received text messages from the regime telling them to leave. Government forces are encircling the city, making it impossible for aid agencies to bring in food, medicine and other essential supplies.
An estimated thousand civilians have been killed in Aleppo in the past three months.
Assad has issued amnesty offers several times in the past in the course of Syria’s civil war, now in its sixth year.
Russian Federation said three humanitarian corridors will be opened around the battered northern city “to aid civilians held hostage by terrorists and for fighters wishing to lay down their arms”.
In early July, regime forces moved to cut Castello road, which links the contested city of Aleppo with opposition-held Idlib, imposing a total blockade on opposition-controlled areas in Aleppo.
A picture of what appeared to be one of the leaflets showed a map of Aleppo, titled “Safe exit points from Aleppo city”, with four crossing points out of the rebel areas marked on the map and described as humanitarian corridors.
“In Aleppo, the situation is extremely serious, no doubt”, Mr de Mistura said.
US Secretary of State John Kerry attends a news conference at the sidelines of the ASEAN foreign ministers meeting in Vientiane, Laos July 26, 2016.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Russia’s Shoigu said that the joint relief operation was being carried out “solely to ensure the safety of the residents of Aleppo”, where “a complex humanitarian situation” had been created.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group says government forces have taken command of large swaths of Aleppo’s Bani Zeid.
“The city is de-facto besieged, because it is nearly completely militarily encircled”, said de Mistura, adding there were only two to three weeks of supplies left.
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“The forcible displacement of Aleppo’s population is a war crime perpetrated by the Syrian regime and a permanent member of the (UN) Security Council”, it said, referring to Russian Federation.
